


Don't Even Have Hockey Skates

by Snow



Category: American Idol RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, Black Character, Canon Queer Character, Community: au_bingo, Dark Agenda, Gen, Racebending Revenge Challenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-29
Updated: 2010-06-29
Packaged: 2017-10-10 08:00:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 556
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/97444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Snow/pseuds/Snow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Adam was pretty sure that he could live for the rest of his life without ever again being called a mix between Lady Gaga and Freddie Mercury, only black.  Because as much as he adored them both, he had pretty much bought the elementary school lesson that every person was their own.  Adam certainly didn't mind musical comparisons, he rather expected them, but the addition of the words "only black" seemed to say that apart from the allegedly tiny matter of skin color, they could contain everything that was him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Don't Even Have Hockey Skates

**Author's Note:**

> Betaed by the lovely Jules; any remaining issues or errors are solely my responsibility.
> 
> In addition to being for dark-agenda, this fic fulfills the square of Alternate History: Author's Choice on my au_bingo.

Adam was pretty sure that he could live for the rest of his life without ever again being called a mix between Lady Gaga and Freddie Mercury, only black. Because as much as he adored them both, he had pretty much bought the elementary school lesson that every person was their own. Adam certainly didn't mind musical comparisons, he rather expected them, but the addition of the words "only black" seemed to say that apart from the allegedly tiny matter of skin color, they could contain everything that was him.

Adam would call bullshit on every article that said that, but that wouldn't make them any less likely to be printed, and then he might have to face the addition of being called oversensitive or angry. So Adam closed the browser tab with the comparison in it and did his best to forget that sometimes his fans were the ones who most upset him.

He had a show in an hour anyway, and he had yet to finish dressing for it.

It only took Adam fifteen minutes to put the rest of his costume on and track down the make-up artists for the final touches.

Then he found his band members and verified that they were ready. Adam had accidentally fired his band manager and hadn't gotten around to hiring a new one yet. Well, the accident had been hiring the man in the first place, firing him after he suggested that Adam should perhaps be less "sexually aggressive" to make sure he didn't send the wrong message to people had just been a fixing of the mistake.

Adam took the stage like he owned it, which as far as he was concerned, he did. The audience started cheering immediately, and that would _never_ cease to be gratifying. Adam scanned the audience. The people in it were mostly white, which sometimes bothered him in a way that the fact that well over half of them were also preteens and straight girls didn't. He shoved that concern to the side and prepared to sing his heart out.

Adam had begun his stage career on a theater stage, and those roots still held strong now. He tended to think that people came to hear him because that way they could also see him perform. If his performances were more than a little over-played, it was because that way he could be sure they reached the audience.

Adam started into If I Had You with a fierce grin and an unspoken challenge to his fans to dance with him. Most of them did, and Adam just let himself relax into the uncomplicated freedom of it all.

There would always be times he would consider letting his music career go, and this day had been particularly bad. Sometimes Adam wanted to just step out of the spotlight and make his decisions without it affecting anyone else. Sometimes he thought it wouldn't matter if he got cast as yet another Othello as long as he could yell about it to whoever he wanted at the end of the day instead of just smiling about it all.

But he couldn't actually give up the fame he'd earned any more than he wanted to. And he still had moments like this, with the connections he could form with his audience, to smile about.


End file.
